Style combination · Pairs well
Brazilian Concrete Design × Op Art Graphics
Maluf's repeated rectangles already vibrate; push the serial module towards op moiré for a kinetic poster that stays constructed.
Start from concrete design's calm serial module, then introduce op distortions in one zone for controlled movement.
Mix them and make something Brazilian Concrete Design Op Art Graphics
01
What each style brings
Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.
Brazilian Concrete Design Op Art Graphics
- Type from Op Art Graphics
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Brazilian Concrete Design avoids ornamented display: this is where the two pull against each other.
- Colour from Brazilian Concrete Design
- Form from Brazilian Concrete Design
- Composition from Op Art Graphics
- Surface from Brazilian Concrete Design
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Op Art Graphics
Index
Monoton, standing in for Mexico 68 multiline lettering (Lance Wyman)
Text · Brazilian Concrete Design
A São Paulo and Rio movement in which concrete art, concrete poetry and Brazil's first design offices shared one vocabulary: Max Bill's mathematically generated geometry, serial repetition and sans-serif type. Sparked by Bill's 1951 retrospective at MASP and the first São Paulo Bienal, it passed through Ulm via Alexandre Wollner into Forminform (1957) and ESDI (1963), producing rigorous trademarks, posters and a celebrated newspaper redesign.
Jost; Brazilian Concrete Design used Futura and Akzidenz-Grotesk
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Brazilian Concrete Design, with a counter-accent from Op Art Graphics. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Brazilian Concrete Design Op Art Graphics
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#f4f2ecground · 36% -
#121212ink · 14% -
#f3c316accent · 18% -
#e3001baccent · 14% -
#e2361faccent · 10% -
#0050b5accent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f4f2ec;
--ink: #121212;
--accent-1: #f3c316;
--accent-2: #e3001b;
--accent-3: #e2361f;
--accent-4: #0050b5;
--font-display: "Monoton", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Brazilian Concrete Design
- Taller de Gráfica Popular Contrasts · Mexico's figurative, militant linocuts are Latin America's other modernism; contrast them to choose between abstraction and narrative.
- International Typographic Style Pairs well · Bring concrete poetry's spatial word-play into a Swiss grid to make typographic layouts that read as images.
- Andean Woven Graphic Systems Pairs well · Both vary a single module serially; apply the Wari rule of rotating and compressing one unit across a field to a systematic poster or identity.
- Tropicália Graphic Design Contrasts · The Brazilian rational design Duarte trained beside and then swallowed: the 1964 Deus e o Diabo poster keeps concrete's lowercase Helvetica and aligned text blocks, then splits them with one cut-out figure in a sun; the 1968 covers drop the grid altogether.
- Literatura de Cordel Woodcut Contrasts · Brazil's concrete designers worked in the same decades with grids and sans-serifs; set a cordel woodcut against concrete typography for a sharp sertão-versus-São Paulo tension.
- Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22) Pairs well · Almeida's tumbled LACTA advertisement gained new meaning once concrete poetry arrived in the 1950s. Set a Klaxon-style word image on a concrete grid to keep the play of letters but discipline its spacing.
- Zagreb Modernist Graphics (EXAT 51 to Teatar &TD) Contrasts · The nearest genome: São Paulo and Zagreb both turned constructive geometry and serial units into posters from 1951. Brazilian concrete design prints offset for industry and the press, sets a few geometric elements in tension with a white ground and stays strictly non-figurative; Zagreb screenprints for a gallery and a student theatre, runs one multiplied unit across the sheet, sometimes on metallic paper, against a small band of lowercase grotesque, and with Arsovski breaks the system with photo collage, pop quotation and rebus titles.
- Pixação (São Paulo Tag Reto) Contrasts · São Paulo's two letter cultures met at the Bienal: concrete design grew out of the first Bienal in 1951, and pixadores wrote across the 28th in 2008. A rational sans on a grid against a wall of tag reto stages the city's divide between institutional modernism and the periphery.
With Op Art Graphics
- Generative & Dynamic Identities Pairs well · Code op's progressive line modulation so an identity can animate and vary while staying perceptually striking.
- Ma & Wabi-sabi Aesthetics Contrasts · Wabi-sabi's quiet irregular textures are the antithesis of mechanical vibration; give one op element plenty of calm space to avoid visual fatigue.
- Psychedelic Poster Pairs well · Psychedelic posters borrowed op's vibrating colour edges; combine precise line fields with melting lettering for kinetic music graphics.
- Zagreb Modernist Graphics (EXAT 51 to Teatar &TD) Pairs well · The New Tendencies shows in Zagreb were one of op art's sources; take op's vibrating line fields and hold them inside Picelj's square module and small lowercase credit line for a gallery poster that stays systematic.
- Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism) Contrasts · Both fill a field edge to edge with one repeated module in the 1960s, but op art's ruled precision makes the eye vibrate while Finnish bold print keeps hand-cut edges and calm flat shapes; choose between perceptual shock and relaxed joy.
- Di Tella Graphic Design (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella) Pairs well · The CLAEM programmes and the Premio Di Tella 64 poster already speak Op; run one heavy grotesque title through an optical field, as Distéfano did, for an event that should vibrate.
- 2 Tone Graphics Pairs well · Let the checkerboard carry optical energy as border and ground around a flat figure.
- Diné (Navajo) Weaving Design Contrasts · Eyedazzlers vibrate because stepped tapestry edges meet saturated yarn colours, not because printed lines are modulated mechanically. Do not confuse the two, and keep the slightly irregular handwoven step.